Anyone who has read enough of my content will know that although I very much appreciate bean to cup machines for how easy they are to use, they're not quite for me.
I'm talking about actual bean to cup machines here, by the way, not machines from Sage such as the Barista Express & Barista Pro, which are often sold as bean to cup coffee machines.
Bean to cup machines (which have built in grinders and internal brewing units or "infusers") are usually a bit of a much of a muchness until you get to the very high end, approaching commercial bean to cup machine territory.
For example, the Bravilor Sprso, Gaggia Accadamia & DeLonghi Maestosa are all close to the two grand mark, and they do deliver something different where cup quality is concerned.
But most other entry to mid level bean to cup coffee machines, tend to have very similar tech, and deliver incredibly similar cup quality.
This, however, is a mid priced bean to cup machine from De'Longhi, which I have to say, I think blows most of the similarly price one touch milk machines out of the water!
Features and Benefits
• 12 One Touch Hot Coffees
• 9 One Touch Iced Coffees (via optional addon)
• True micro foam (from a one touch milk carafe!)
• Quick Swap Hoppers
• Bean Adapt - Dialing In Assistance
• Very Intuitive, Interactive User Interface
• 1.4 Litre Water Tank (front accessed)
• Dump Box Capacity: 10
• Extra Shot Function
• Maximum Cup Height : 14.0
• Grinder Bypass Chute for Pre-ground
The Rivelia is quite a revelation, which does sound like a pun, but it's not really since Rivelia is Italian for "Reveal", so that doesn't quite work.
It has a dual hopper system for loading different beans & a clever "switch" mode for allowing you to make one last coffee with the beans that have already dropped into the burrs when you swap over.
The user interface is refreshingly simple, and talks to the user as if it's human, right from the point that you turn it on, for example instead of just prompting you to enter the date, it displays this text on the touch screen:
"Before we go any further, can you tell me what time it is? It'll only take a minute." And below that is the option to choose the day and the time.
The more I went through the set up steps, the more impressed I became with it, but then, I tasted the espresso...
It was up there with the best espresso I've had from a bean to cup machine.
OK, impressive. But then I made a "flat white", and I'm using the quote marks because remember, this is a one touch milk forther bean to cup machine, they can't do proper flat white texture.
The Rivelia, actually can!
I can honestly say, this was the best flat white I've ever had from a one touch milk carafe bean to cup coffee machine.
Obviously the machine won't do the latte art ;-), if you want do do that you need to let the milk froth into a jug and then pour it into your espresso, but this kind of milk texture from a one touch bean to cup machine is unheard of.
Well, maybe it's not unheard of in marketing blurb, but in terms of actually being able to produce this kind of texture, this is the first I've seen true microfoam from a one touch milk carafe.
You have control of the texture, too. If you prefer a slightly stiffer foam for what I refer to as modern cappuccino, it'll do that too, just by setting the froth dial to the "creamy" icon.
Bean Adapt Technology
This is, essentially, dialling in assistance.
There's not a great deal of dialling in to be done with a bean to cup machine, to be fair.
Why they've given this kind of technology to a bean to cup machine, while they've given their latest machines aimed at the home barista market, only 8 grind settings and no such helpful dialling in assistance, does make me scratch my head a bit.
Nonetheless, this is clever, and very convenient.
Basically you tell it what the roast profile of the beans are, you tell it what the grind setting is, and then when you've pulled a shot, it asks you to choose from a few options to tell the machine what you thought of it.
You can then save the name of your beans, and it'll tell you what grind size and brew temp to use for these beans when you select that you're using them in future.
Its smart, but I think they should really have put this on the La Specialista range, I'm not sure it's quite as useful on their bean to cup machines as it would be with their portafilter machines.
Quick Swap Hoppers + Switch Mode
This is very clever, and I think it's possibly the best approach I've seen from any coffee manufacturer so far when it comes to dealing with different beans.
The Melitta TS Smart for example, the only bean to cup coffee machine that doesn't require a mortgage which has at least attempted to resolve this issue, has a split hopper, just one hopper divided in two, feeding the same grinder.
Not great, but at least they've tried.
There is the DeLonghi Maestosa, which has two hoppers feeding two grinders, that's certainly an approach, but at about two grand, it's a very expensive approach.
So what DeLonghi have done here is to give the user two hoppers, with a switch system, which means that when you go to switch the hoppers, you're asked if you want to make one last coffee with the beans that are already sitting on top of the burrs, or if you want to purge the beans instead (waste them).
So if you're making a full caffeine coffee for yourself and then a decaf for your better half, for example, you just use the switch option to make one last coffee using the full caffeine beans that are still on top of the burrs when you switch, and then you make the decaf.
You can go straight from one hopper and back, for example make yourself a full caffeine coffee in switch mode, then make a decaf also in switch mode, then put your full caffeine hopper back on.
The only downside to doing this is that in switch mode you can't control the intensity, you just get whatever was left below the hopper on top of the burrs when you unlock the hopper. Still, amazing feature!
Cold Milk Frothing
As well as an iced Americano function for making cooler Americano over ice, it has the ability to produce cold froth, for iced latte, cappuccino, flat white and more!
The only downside to this is you need to buy the cool lattecrema system.
If you do that, when you put that in place, it automatically opens up a new menu on the touch screen for cold frothed drinks, cold frothed versions all of your hot milkies!
Negatives?
As I've said, it's not perfect, but the imperfections are fairly insignificant.
The only thing that I think might put some people off, is that as with all one touch carafe machines I've used, the milk temperature is limited and you have no control over it.
For me, it's perfect. I measured the milk temp as being around 60-62C, and that's bang on in my opinion, but if you're one of the people who enjoy scalding hot milkies, it may be a negative for you, that you're limited to this milk temp.
I do wish De'Longhi would make it a bit easier for us to know what intensity relates to (roughly) in terms of grams. I will work this out, and I'll update this accordingly when I have, but I don't know why they don't just tell us "setting 1 is approx. 5 grams of coffee" and so on.
I wish they gave a bit more control over espresso volume. "Small" is about 30-35ml, and I can live with that, but I'd like the ability to be able to choose a smaller volume than that, ideally.
If you leave the hot water spout in its designated holder inside the storage compartment on the top, and leave the scoop/brush tool in it's cut-out slot, the lid doesn't shut properly.
Not a big deal, you'll probably never use the scoop anyway, you can just lob that in a drawer, but still, they've done such a good job with everything else, it seems like a strange little error to make.
There's a little tactile dot on the on/off icon. I can only assume this is to help visually impaired users, otherwise I can't think what it would be for.
If this is what it's meant for, that's great, but the only issue with that is that the on/off is so sensitive that as soon as you feel this dot, you've turned it on or off.
So if this is the intention, I think they'd need to reduce the sensitivity to allow someone to lightly feel for this tactile reference point. I do realise that as a touch screen machine this wouldn't help anyone who is blind, but I'd think it would be at least helpful for people with some level of visual impairment.
And that's literally all I can find fault with.
So, overall, this is without a doubt the best mid priced one touch bean to cup coffee machine I've used, and the milk texture is the best I've experienced from any one touch milk carafe, full stop!